


Love is a Harsh Word

by withoutmarbles



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/F, don't worry neither Rosalie nor Alice dies but someone does, human Alice/vampire Rosalie, some mentions of sexual assault, this fic is from like 2012 so please don't judge me too harshly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-04-19 08:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14232990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutmarbles/pseuds/withoutmarbles
Summary: A guide to not getting a girlfriend by Rosalie Hale.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my longest Rosalice fic ever! This is a very, very old fic, but there has been some demand for more Rosalice, and I am always happy to oblige. Please don't judge too harshly, I was a teenager when I wrote this. Bits of it are incomplete, so forgive me if there are continuity errors or gaps. 
> 
> But, if you can get past the flaws, I hope you enjoy! <3

_alice_

When Jasper had told me that it ‘was in my best interest to go to Forks for the time being’, I had assumed it had been to get away from the vampires.

I had not anticipated running into an entire clan of them on my third day in town.

But, there they were, standing around in the hallways like any other teenagers (also, right in front of my locker like any other teenagers). 

It wasn’t the normalcy that frightened me — Jasper had, after all, been posing as human — but rather their number and, honestly, existence. I didn’t see vampires as inherently evil, or even inherently scary. I trusted Jasper wholeheartedly, and he was _definitely_ a vampire, venom-induced scars and all. But I had nothing on these ones. What did a bunch of teenaged vampires want with high school? Who would _come back_ to high school? 

It couldn’t even be for the hunting. Their eyes were that weird yellow that Jasper’s were sometimes, which he had explained meant he had been feeding on animals. Judging by the vibrance of these ones’, they fed _only_ on animals. Vegetarians vampires. Ironic.

Making a mental note to ask Jasper about it the next time we had any communication (which could be months- no, think positive) I cleared my throat.

“Excuse me,” I said, flapping my arm at the locker they were blocking. 

Apparently, people didn’t interrupt the vampires often at this school, because the blonde girl and the ginger boy both gave me funny looks. Probably wondering why I wasn’t quaking in my (new and fancy) shoes as was the typical human instinct when vampires were this close. Sure, my heart still did the ‘speeding up’ thing, but at least I knew the cause. Nothing was more horrible than being terrified and not knowing why. 

The ginger one — the one _right in front_ of my locker — didn’t really move, because he seemed too focused on trying to burn through my skin with his gaze. Weird vampires, weird looks. 

I ignored him and wriggled past to my locker, _finally._ This, at least, felt normal. Waking up in my old bedroom in Forks? Weird. Arriving to school in my dad’s police cruiser? Fun, but weird. Having to tap into my ‘second sight’ to find the front office because _who even designed this building?_ Weird. Running into a bunch of vampires? Weird. Fighting with a lock that was older than my grandmother? Normal. Very, very normal. I could do with some normal.

By the time I emerged from my locker, which I think might have been considered small by the average-sized teenager but seemed huge to me, the vampires had cleared out except for Mr. Lock-Block, who, in the absence of his coven, looked particularly scrawny. His skin was an almost unhealthily pale white, making his freckles stand out painfully. Not too different from me, really, but at least I didn’t look like a _corpse._ I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of concern for his health, although of course he couldn’t get sick.

“Aren’t you an interesting little creature,” he said. I didn’t jump, even though he’d broken me from an angry locker-related reverie. Psychic perks.

“Hello to you, too,” I said, and clicked my lock shut. “Hellos are customary. Unless people are-”

“-blocking your locker. Yes. I apologize; that was inconsiderate of me. I’m unaccustomed to having anyone near me.” Lock-Block gestured to my locker and those surrounding it. “That row has been empty for years.”

I didn’t really know what he wanted me to say to that, so I just nodded and smiled and tried to ignore the hairs raising on the back of my neck. The hallways were clearing, and despite the fact that this boy was a vegetarian vampire, my instincts screamed for me to get out. I’d been alone with Jasper countless times, so how dangerous could this boy be in comparison?

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said in a tone that I thought was inappropriately amused. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

Great. Lock-Block was either a mind-reader or really good at reading expressions.

“The former. You may also refer to me as Edward.”

Whoops. 

There was a silence that would have been awkward if I hadn’t known it wasn’t silent for him. If there was ever a time for self-control, this was it. I pictured myself putting a harness around my thoughts and looked at him, waiting for him to get to the point. There _had_ to be a point. If I had learned anything from Jasper, it was that vampires didn’t really do small talk, which was fine by me.

His golden eyes widened. “Oh, of course, how impolite of me. You must have somewhere to be. I’ll get right to it, then.” He nodded in the direction of my forehead. To indicate he was responding to a thought, I guessed. “Jasper Hale was once a member of our family. He has recently been in contact with me.”

That would have been nice for Jasper to mention. I frowned.

“Though I was admittedly not his first choice of confidant, as he finds my mind reading ‘unnerving’,” Edward said with a strained smile, “he has made me aware of your situation. I am to keep an eye out for any, ah, disturbances. I assure you, should I become aware of anything, I will be in immediate contact with you.”

I couldn’t resist smiling at the overly formal tone. Because it reminded me of Jasper; because he seemed just as uncomfortable as I was; because vampires, in spite of their appearance, didn’t really know how to act human.

“Thank you,” I said. “I am, um, much obliged.”

He bowed — actually _bowed —_ and excused himself to class.

I took another look at my lock, just to remind myself that normal things really did exist.

* 

Things finally felt more or less normal when I realized that first period English had a seating arrangement. This landed me right next to the only person in the (admittedly very small) room who didn’t have a desk mate.

And, look, I’m not saying that Rosalie Hale looked inherently disagreeable. I’m just saying that I really didn’t want to sit next to her first thing in the morning, every morning.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact she had a killer glare going on.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I had never actually encountered a female vampire before.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was an unfamiliar vampire, period.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her hair, a light blonde, fell to the middle of her back in loose, glossy waves. Her lips, full and soft, were a dark red, in stark contrast with her light complexion. Her amber eyes were closed off and hard — but I found, the one time I caught her gaze, that I couldn’t look away, because they were beautiful regardless. (I got flustered when I so much as walked by a poster with Natalie Portman on it, so I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to handle sitting next a modern-day Aphrodite.)

Whatever it was, I pushed it down and sat down next to her, managing a too-perky ‘hi’. She nodded in response, not taking her eyes off her nails.

That I could deal with. I’d dealt with the ‘ignoring people for their nails’ type before. It was practically a guarantee in high school. There would be _somebody._ And lucky, sociable, extroverted me had landed right next to one.

I glanced at her once more before sinking into my catchup work.

I’d done what I could today. A ‘hi’ was enough for now. 

There was always tomorrow.

 *

Or, as it so turned out, next period. 

And the next. 

Fourth period, Art, put me next to a good-natured guy named Mike Newton. He mentioned somewhere at the beginning of class that he was friends with my cousin Angela, which immediately put him in my good books. He also seemed to know just about everybody and to have a deep need to introduce me to all of those everybodies, which kept things interesting. 

Fourth period, I decided, I liked.

In fifth period, I wound up next to the other female vampire, who was apparently posing as a junior so good at math that she needed to be put in senior-level classes. Unlike the vampires I had met so far, Edward and Rosalie and Jasper, who were pale in the extreme, she was all dark tones, her skin a deep toffee colour and her curly hair just a few shades off jet black. She spoke enough to actually introduce herself as Bella Swan. Out of all of the vampires I’d spoken to, she seemed the most human — ducking her head to avoid the teacher’s gaze, slumping her shoulders during the boring parts of class, smiling shyly and shifting her gaze whenever she met someone else’s. 

I didn’t mind fifth period. I could handle sitting next to a shy vampire.

By sixth period, I expected to be shoved into a seat next to a vampire. Most of them seemed to have worked their vampire magic to get them put into single seats — because apparently _every single class_ had an odd number of students — which meant that all of them were the only available desk partners. I considered asking to be put by myself at the very back, but my intuition told me that it would be pointless.

And, yes, there towards the back of the room was one Miss Rosalie Hale. I actually groaned this time. I could take the first three periods, but, really, this was pushing it. 

As per second and third period, we didn’t acknowledge each other. 

Seventh period, Fashions. No vampires in Fashions. 

Eighth period was study hall, and since third period had brought me another round of Tall, Blonde, and Silent (which was amusingly an accurate description of both Rosalie and Jasper) I had been looking forward to it. No seating arrangements in study hall. Just round tables and silence. Actually, the silence wasn’t so great, but, given the alternative, I would take it.

But, as if to give me a final kick in the face, there was Rosalie Hale, sitting in my study hall. 

I made sure I sat as far away from her as possible.

Angela took one look and understood.

By the time my dad’s cruiser arrived to bring me home, I half-expected Rosalie Hale to be in there, too.


	2. Chapter 2

_rosalie_

In my afterlife, I had dealt with many things.

I had dealt with seventy-two hours straight of Debussy music.

I had dealt with foolish women who would give everything for immortality.

I had dealt with disgusting, slobbering pigs in the darkest of alleys. 

And I had dealt with teenaged humans for more days than I cared to count.

When it — any of it — felt to be too much, I pushed on. I dealt with it, because that is, of course, what a _lady_ does. She deals, because many times there is nothing more she can do.

So, naturally, it was infuriating when a tiny human girl strolled into my life and threw a match onto all of my hard work. I didn’t watch so much as feel my progress crumble into ashes.

I had been _so good._

Maybe my act had already begun to falter. Maybe she was just drawing my attention to it. Maybe she wasn’t the reason I felt myself slipping.

But, for whatever reason, I could not deal with Mary Alice Brandon.

She wasn’t rude. Nothing about her screamed ‘impolite’. She was well-kept, her clothes pressed and matched, and though her smattering of freckles was wild and her cheeks always seemed to be blotched with natural colour, she at least seemed to do what she could to tame her hair. She was timely with her work. She was personable.

But, by the end of my second day of knowing her, I knew that I could not, absolutely _could not,_ deal with her.

I had been around humans I couldn’t deal with before. I, of course, had always managed to find a way to convince myself and those around me that I _was_ dealing with them, but I didn’t even know where to begin with this one. I didn’t even know _why_ she bothered me so much. Just her existence seemed to be pushing my limits, although I knew that believing such a thing to be true would be ignorant. There was always _something_ about those who tested me, one glaring issue, one big problem around which all of their idiosyncrasies revolved.

And, with Mary Alice — or _Alice,_ as I had heard her correct several people — there was no glaring issue. Not one. 

Oh, there were a handful of other issues. By the second day, I could list those off, no problem. 

She was fidgety. Toddler-fidgety.

Her face was too pretty for her childlike physique and her eyes were an unnatural azure.

She was _too_ personable. Most humans just ignored me after the first day, but she persisted with the ‘hello’s and the smiles and it made my skin itch.

Her voice was too high-pitched. 

Or maybe it was too cheerful. 

Or both. 

She talked too quickly for a human. Way too quickly.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. With every minute that passed, I could feel the list growing. But there was no unified theme. She wasn’t like Jessica Stanley, whose every issue related back to a desperate insecurity. 

Alice just _was._

I almost hated her for it.

Was that too cruel? Yes. Of course it was. 

But cruelty had always been a specialty of mine.

 *

It took her two weeks to give up most of her pleasantries. She just sighed and joined somebody else when we were tasked with group work and she always kept her inane teenage chatter directed elsewhere. It had taken her longer than the others to concede, and for that I had to commend her. At least she was strong of heart.

I thought, then, that I could really, truly block her out. This was what I needed, surely. I needed to interact with her as little as possible. I needed her little intrusions gone before I could learn to cope.

I was wrong.

* 

She cracked before I did.

“What is your _problem?”_

Both the whispered demand and the annoyance it contained took me off guard. I hadn’t been paying attention, as this had to be my fifth time watching this particular film adaptation of Hamlet. I instead found myself distracted by the clicking of her pen. _Click. Click. Click._

Admittedly, I had always done a poor job of hiding my contempt. She was bound to notice eventually. But it was still _odd._ I’d never heard a cross word leave her mouth. Yet there it was.

Alice had turned to look at me, to give me her full attention. Or, more accurately, to return the glare I must have been giving her, full-force. In the dim light of the classroom, her blue eyes seemed brighter, angrier. She didn’t look particularly threatening given her size — if anything, the way her face scrunched up was just sort of cute.

But annoying. Exceptionally annoying.

I seriously considered not responding and just holding her gaze until her resolve faded. Humans’ always did when faced with their natural predators‘. On most days, I would have. That was how I dealt with things.

But I didn’t deal with her.

“What, specifically?” I asked, raising my eyebrows slightly. “Or would you like a list?”

It occurred to me after I spoke that these were the first words I had ever said to her. I should have gone for something more memorable — not that I had ever found myself to be a particularly forgettable person.

For a moment, she looked surprised that I had actually spoken. Her eyes widened ever-so-slightly for a fraction of a second before snapping back into place, like she had to remind herself to be angry. 

“I’m asking about the problem you seem to have — with me, specifically, apparently — every first period class. And second period. And third. And sixth. And, on occasion, eighth.” She paused before adding, “But I’d love to listen to you talk about your petty day-to-day problems sometime. I’m sure they’re _fascinating._ ”

“I’ll be sure to look into that,” I quipped. “How are your Wednesdays looking?”

Alice kept glaring. 

That was irksome. Purposefully avoiding somebody’s question was usually enough of a deterrent to make them give up.

She held her gaze steady. 

What was _wrong_ with this one? Couldn’t she tell that I was a vampire in a dark room who was more than capable of ripping her throat out? Most people gained the appearance of a weepy child when they so much as made eye contact with myself or one of my siblings on a movie day.

She still wasn’t wavering.

I pulled a heavy, theatrical sigh from somewhere within me, something I usually reserved for Edward, and crossed my arms. 

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” I could hear the condescension dripping from my voice. I was pulling out all the stops now. “I just don’t like you.”

That about summed up my reasoning for disliking her. Just _because._

That seemed to amuse her. “Because?”

“Just because.”

Her irritation was definitely mingling with amusement, now.

“That’ll hold up in court.”

I bit back a snarl. A real vampire snarl. Those were reserved for crises. However, a human girl trying my patience this much with so few valid reasons for doing so could count as a crisis. If it went on much longer, I felt certain it would.

Before I could respond, our ever-alert English teacher — who I could have sworn was older than I was — finally looked up from her musty copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ and shushed us. 

We lapsed into silence with the rest of the class, then. Our teacher went back to reading. I fell back into my habit of looking at my nails. Alice went back to clicking her pen.

_Click._

_Click._

_Click._

I fixed my stare on that damned pen and the damned hand clicking it. 

She put it down once to rummage through her bag for her phone, the vibration of which I could just barely sense. 

The moment she looked away, I grabbed the pen and, faster than anyone around me was able to register, unscrewed the base, removed the spring, and crushed the fountain. I tucked the little piece of metal into my pocket and returned the pen to its spot before she had finished reading her text.

The phone went away, and her hand found the pen again. 

Her thumb went down for another _click._

Nothing.

The silence rang sweet in my ears for the few seconds that remained before the bell.

I leapt to my feet, already having decided to skip out for the rest of the day, and on my way out the door, I was certain I heard Alice muttering, “-see how _you_ like it when I remove your spine from your body while you’re reading a text message…”


	3. Chapter 3

_alice_

I had forgiven people for many things in my life. I was _not_ prepared to forgive some melodramatic vampire for using her supernatural speed to break my favourite pen. That was just unfair. For all she knew, that could’ve been the last thing my now-estranged brother ever gave me before disappearing off the face of the earth. It _wasn’t,_ but it still _could have_ been.

Long story short, I was not forgiving Rosalie Hale.

But not forgiving her didn’t mean I couldn’t look at her, right? I didn’t do well at denying myself pretty things — my shoe collection said as much.

I couldn’t help it. I didn’t set out to admire her every day. But she wasn’t exactly providing conversation, so I allowed myself the simple pleasure of looking at her from time to time and of pretending she wasn’t the most unpleasant person I had ever met. 

Besides, I could get away with it. I was a _girl._ Nobody would suspect that I was overcome by her beauty; they would assume that I was consumed by jealousy. The glances of Tyler Crowley were noticeable to everyone within a fifty foot radius, and I knew it wasn’t just Rosalie who found it distasteful. People noticed. No one would give me those half-pitying, half-disgusted glances when I looked at her. 

And anyways, I didn’t watch her out of _lust._ I watched her with a sort of removed attraction. Definitely in no way that would draw attention.

I didn’t like that I watched her. She was so- so- _awful._ And consciously, intentionally so. I didn’t want to send any positive attention her way, but, like I said, my self-control was wanting.

But, no matter how beautiful she was, she had ruined my favourite pen.

I had loved that pen.

*

The two important events of me finding another clicky pen that I liked and me hearing from Jasper for the first time since I had arrived in Forks fell on the same day.

I woke up with my arm wedged between my mattress and the wall. This normally would have been cause for annoyance, because humans weren’t meant to have their arms squished like that, but, as I went to remove my arm, I brushed up against the cold plastic of — yes! — another pen. It was basically the same one Rosalie had destroyed, except purple, and I thought I could cope with that. And I’d be sure she learned to cope, too, because I was _not_ going through the trauma of losing another one of my nicest pens.

Also, I wasn’t going to let Rosalie Hale spoil my good mood.

In my determination, that good mood carried all through my morning routine and all the way to first period, where my cousin took notice.

“What’s got you looking so cheerful?” Angela asked. “Did your dad run over Macklemore on the way here or something?”

“If only,” I sighed. “But no. I’m saving that one for when I have my own car.”

“Well?”

I dug into my bag and pulled my pen, brandishing it as if it were a legendary sword.

“Behold!”

Angela was one of four people in the world who would understand how I could be excited over something as small as a pen. The thought made me miss my little sister — but even that didn’t put much of a damper on my mood.

“A new pen.” Angela whistled. “But does it live up to the legacy of your old one?”

“It’s pretty much the same one,” I said, twirling it between my fingers. “Just purple.”

I didn’t see so much as sense Rosalie sit down behind me. She must have seen the pen. But, just to be sure...

_Click._

I could practically feel the cringe. 

My smile widened.

“What happened to your other one, anyways? I know how attached you get to your writing utensils,” Angela said.

I sheathed the tip with another click. “The spring was stolen and the fountain was crushed in a totally non-malicious fashion.”

She raised an eyebrow, her eyes flicking to where Rosalie sat. 

Before she could make any comment, the bell rang. Considering it took our teacher a solid two minutes to mark her place in her book and shuffle to the front of the room, I took my time getting back to my seat, twirling the pen all the while.

As predicted, Rosalie’s eyes were narrowed to slits and her arms were crossed tight. 

“Lovely morning, isn’t it?” I commented, smiling at her.

Rosalie looked more like an animal barring its teeth than anything when she replied, “Delightful.” 

“You could have just asked me to stop clicking my pen. I would have.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She sniffed, regaining some of her composure.

I had to shut up, then. Something about ‘paying attention in class’ to ‘get good grades’ so that I could ‘go to a good college’. 

And I honestly was paying attention in class to get good grades so that I could go to a good college. At least, until my vision blurred for the split second that told me _something’s going to happen something’s going to happen something’s going to happen_ and my stomach twisted. 

_Phone. Get your phone._

My hand found my phone right as it vibrated to alert me of a text.

I had become very, very good at grabbing my phone and checking my texts unnoticed by authority figures. Every time, I hoped that maybe, _finally,_ it would be some word from Jasper. He had promised to keep me posted and while, yes, I was sure that texting wasn’t at the top of his priority list while he was hunting a gifted tracker, I still hoped.

It was never him, though. It was always Dad, or Cynthia, or Angela trying to save me from Rosalie-purgatory.

This time, though, I knew it was before I even looked at the screen.

I could have cried. 

_Sorry this is late. I’m assuming that more time has passed than I’m really aware. If this isn’t late, though, then feel free to ignore that first bit. I’m okay. Tracker’s still in the Southern states. Don’t think he knows where you are yet. Tell me how Forks is? -J_

Tears really did prick at my eyes. I squeezed them shut to fight them off, my hands clasped tight around the phone. 

Then, after checking that certain teachers weren’t paying attention, I tapped out a quick reply.

_it’s late. about a month has passed since i got here. it’s nice to live with my dad again. :) btw, you didn’t tell me your old coven lived here. it’s kind of weird. text me when you can? xo_

My shoulders slumped and I let out a breath as I watched my text send. The weight that had been pressing on me felt lighter, although not lifted. Jasper was okay, for now. 

_Thank goodness._

I slid my phone back into my bag. 

I closed my eyes one last time and took a deep breath.

_Thank_ God _._

When I opened my eyes, I could feel Rosalie looking at me. You could say I had developed a sixth- or, rather, seventh sense for that. A ‘Rosalie disapproves’ sense.

Sure, she usually looked disapproving, or at the very least bored, but it was rarely openly directed at me. This look was definitely for me. Which, I supposed, was understandable considering the fact I probably still looked like I was on the verge of tears.

She raised an eyebrow when I met her gaze. 

I decided that I must have accidentally said something.

Our teacher was handing out worksheets on Hamlet, now, so it was safe to talk. Why I was having two conversations with Rosalie Hale in one day, I wasn’t sure. It gave me an excuse to look at her, anyhow.

“Did I say something?” I asked. “I feel like I said something.”

“You thanked God enough times to make my inner atheist ill.”

“Tell her I said sorry.”

Rosalie nodded at my bag, where my phone had been stowed away. “You’re awfully attached to that thing. Did you get a super-Christian poem from your boyfriend or something?”

Boyfriend. Of _course_. “I _am_ awfully attached to that thing. I’ve been waiting for a text.”

“I assume it arrived.”

My stupid, relieved smile returned. _Jasper’s okay._

“Yeah.”

Rosalie’s eyebrows stayed raised.

“You want me to tell you what it was about,” I realized.

“I’m running out of things to silently mock you about. Sue me,” she said, not looking away from me as she accepted the papers being passed around and handed one to me with all that unfair vampiric smoothness.

I didn’t even reward her comment with an eyeroll, but I had nothing to lose from telling her, I supposed, and it struck me that she knew Jasper, too. They shared a last name and all that, so it was a probably a coven concern, or something.

“I’ve been waiting to hear from a good friend of mine. Jasper.” Sure enough, the name-drop sparked interest. “He’s... away. I’ve been waiting to hear if his, um… trip... is going okay.” 

It felt awfully silly to be filtering what I said to somebody who fully well knew what the supernatural world was like. That aside, I was a terrible liar.

“Jasper?” Rosalie asked. “Uncommon name.”

Subtle. 

“Yeah, you don’t meet too many Jaspers.” I idly clicked my pen. Rosalie didn’t even seem to notice. “Or too many friendly vampires. Imagine getting two in one.”

For a few seconds, she didn’t react. And then, her eyes went wide, and I could have sworn they went a shade or two darker. 

There was the reaction I had been expecting. Served her right for ruining my favourite pen. She was going to find out that I knew about vampires sooner or later, anyways. And what was more fun than a game of Russian Roulette in English class?

She must have done a quick glance around the room — I’d learned to recognize the blur if I watched closely — before settling into her usual glare, this time with an edge of serious anger.

“What did you just say?”

“I’m not repeating it. I know I don’t like it when people repeat _my_ secrets.”

Her lips drew back over her teeth in a snarl. “You say a word to _anyone-”_

I held up my hands. “Me telling anyone would end just as badly for me as it would for you.”

“I doubt that.”

“I wouldn’t know anything at all if I didn’t have something invested in it.” 

She still didn’t look like she was buying it.

“Ask your brother,” I said. “I’m sure, if you ask nicely, he’ll explain it to you.”

“How am I supposed to ask my brother if I have no idea where- oh.” Her snarl turned into a scowl. “You were referring to Edward.”

The conversation was over, then. She refolded her arms and glared at anything that moved. I felt bad for poor Jessica Stanley, who happened to be right in Rosalie’s line of sight.

Rosalie and I didn’t exchange a single word for the rest of the day. The most she did to acknowledge my existence was to cast what I thought almost looked like a hurt look at my phone whenever I had it out.

The last I saw of her that week was in the hallway, where she had cornered Edward.

As I passed, he threw a betrayed look my way.

_Sorry._

His eyes very clearly said that ‘sorry’ didn’t cut it. I didn’t want to imagine what Rosalie was like when she was actually mad, and I could tell that his situation would escalate quickly.

_So sorry._

*

As expected, Rosalie Hale’s disdain for my existence only increased after that incident.

Or maybe it wasn’t that the disdain grew, just that it became more apparent. Not that she paid any more mind to me than usual — actually, I may as well not have existed. At least she wasn’t glaring at me in class anymore. With her little storm cloud gone from over top of me, I found it easier to leave our little rage-bubble and talk to the people around me. I discovered that Angela’s almost-but-not-quite-boyfriend Ben, was in most of my morning classes as well, and he provided more than enough entertainment in Rosalie’s absence. 

With Ben, Mike, Angela, and Jessica around, I found that I could settle back into the life of a teenage girl. No more ‘teenage girl in a mental hospital’ or ‘teenage girl on the run from a tracker vampire’. Just ‘teenage girl’. 

That, I could deal with. 


	4. Chapter 4

_rosalie_

“You _know_ it’s not that girl’s fault that we haven’t heard from Jasper.”

For the fifth time, Emmett was trying to make a case for Alice Brandon.

“Besides, she’s not going to just vanish from existence if you ignore her long enough,” he continued. “Just give it a rest. Be civil to her like we are to everyone else.”

I looked up from the work I had spread across the couch to find Emmett standing in the door, as enormous and startling as usual. His brown hair, just a shade or two darker than his skin, was flopped in his eyes, but not enough that I couldn’t see the pleading look in them.

I had hoped that filling all possible seats with paper would be enough of a deterrent to anyone who took it upon themselves to ‘talk some sense into me’, but there he was.

“I don’t see how this is any of your business.”

“I just hate to see you getting so worked up, Rosie.” I cringed at the old endearment. “It’s not like you.”

“Based on everything the family collectively knows about me, this should seem perfectly in character,” I said. “I have been known to occasionally lose my temper for an extended period of time.”

Emmett planted himself on the sliver of space not covered by my English work. I glared just sharply enough that he shifted as if he were going to stand right back up, but he held his ground. Damn it. I guessed the effect of our past relationship was finally wearing off; he didn’t listen to me anymore. 

“Humans never bother you this much.”

“This one does.”

“What’s so bad about her?” Emmett persisted. I managed to stop myself from getting angry with him; he wasn’t trying to make me out as irrational and silly. He was trying to help. He cared. Even now.

“It’s a long list.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world.”

And I knew he meant it.

“She’s just- too much. Her voice is too high. She talks too fast and too much. She’s too pale to have that many freckles. She clicks her pens. She taps her pencils. She never sits still. She never focuses. She always checks her phone a split second before it goes off. She’s too nice to people. Her fashion sense is too good for a seventeen-year-old girl in a small town. Her hair never looks the same twice and her face is way too pretty for how young the rest of her looks.” 

By the end of the speech, I was glaring at nothing. I could feel ink leaking onto my hands; I must have snapped the pen somewhere along the line.

Emmett waited a second before observing, “And you think that Jasper picked her over us.”

“Of course I do. He did. But that’s not the problem.” I shifted my glare to him, but it wasn’t as vicious now. “Do you really think I’m so childish that I would blame her for Jasper’s hero complex? _Please_.”

He fidgeted in the way he did when he didn’t agree with me.

“Spit it out.”

Emmett kept fidgeting. “I sort of... I mean,” he said, “sometimes you do take things out on the wrong people. Like, you were really mad at Edward when you found out he’d spoken to Jasper, but really that was more Jasper’s fault than his.”

“Oh, forgive me for believing that he had the responsibility of informing the rest of the family that he had spoken to Jasper, who has just _vanished_ for the past decade,” I snapped. “If you’re going to bring irrelevancies into this, please feel free to leave. Actually, feel free to leave anyways.”

He shot me a wounded look. “I’m just trying to help.”

“You are not going to convince me to like Alice Brandon,” I said. “She’s too idiosyncratic and she bothers me. End of story.”

Something changed in Emmett’s expression. The wounded look was gone.

“You know, you sure pay a lot of attention to her for all you say you hate her.”

Oh, no. He was _not_ going to play that card.

“Excuse me?” I injected as much venom into the words as I could manage, but, true to my earlier suspicions, Emmett didn’t back down. I had trained him better than this.

His grin was threatening to break through. “I’m just saying, when I don’t like someone, I block them out.”

“That’s the issue. I _can’t_ block her out.”

“You sure do a good job at blocking Edward out.”

“I’ve had years of practice.”

“The way I hear it, you managed it from day one.”

_“So?”_

That grin was so, so smug. I couldn’t help but imagine being the one to smack it off his face. I hadn’t raised a finger for violence in decades. Only Emmett could make me go from appreciating him to wanting him wiped off the earth within minutes.

“So, it seems to me like you’re acting like a five-year-old boy.” He raised his eyebrows. “You play the ‘I hate her game’ to cover up the fact that you might actually sort of-”

At this point, my hands slammed into his shoulders of their own accord, sending both of us toppling off the couch. I kept my grip firm, pinning him to the ground. The moment he got over the shock of me springing at him, he would be able to push me off, but, for the time being, I was in charge.

I put my teeth just close enough to his throat that he could feel their sharp tips.

“Were you saying something, Emmett?”

His grin was definitely gone, now. I felt him swallow and shift his hands so that they were positioned underneath me. He was debating fighting back.

I dug my teeth in, just slightly.

“No.”

I drew back.

“And are you _ever_ going to be saying it?”

Silence.

“I won’t say it if you don’t want me to, Rosie.”

I released him and stood up. My hands were still covered in ink, but I hardly noticed as I spun around and stalked from the room. 

I paused in the doorframe. Emmett was still on the floor, his eyes sad.

“While you’re at it, _stop calling me that_.” 

 *

The end of my relationship with Emmett had been a long time coming.

To this day, I wasn’t entirely sure my family knew why, after I came back from my year of travelling, Emmett and I were no longer together. 

Edward knew, certainly, and Jasper. But Esme, Carlisle, and Bella, I thought, had never figured it out.

In all honesty, I didn’t think I could go through it again. The explanation.

I have always been glad it was Emmett whose heart I had to break. Not because I didn’t care for him; not because I thought he deserved it; not because I was wicked; but because I am certain that he is the only person in the world who would understand, or would die trying.

I didn’t like to remember it. He didn’t, either. We were both much happier carrying on as if we had never been anything more to each other than good friends.

But sometimes, I couldn’t help it any more than I could help noticing Alice Brandon.

 *

_“Emmett.”_

_“Rosie.”_

 

_A sigh._

 

_“I...”_

_“I know.”_

_“You know?”_

_“I know.”_

 

_Silence._

 

_“How-”_

_“How could I not?”_

_“But we’re still...”_

_“Not for a long time now.”_

 

_A shaky breath._

 

_“How long have you known?”_

_“‘Bout the same as you.”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“Shh.”_

 

_Silence._

 

_“You have to know how hard I tried.”_

_“Of course I do.”_

_“I just can’t do it anymore.”_

_“It’s okay. I promise, it’s okay.”_

 

_Hesitation._

 

_“I love you.”_

_“I know.”_

_Silence._


	5. Chapter 5

_alice_

I had never considered myself ‘in the closet’. I distinctly remembered marching up to my mother when I was twelve and announcing that I wanted her blessing to marry Natalie Portman, and that had been that.

Not much had changed since then, except that I was now surrounded by people who didn’t know about my sexuality and would, of course, assume that I was straight. When I’d told my mother that I was gay, it had spread quickly to my step-father. My little sister, Cynthia, had already known. Before I’d had a chance to tell anyone at school, though, my hospital visits became so frequent that I never really saw anyone outside my family. I had never had to hide, because there had been no one to hide _from._

Things were different in Forks.

It wasn’t that I was _lying_ about my sexuality; it was just that no one ever asked. But I was vague enough about it to make it _feel_ like lying. The nervousness that crept up in my neck whenever I considered mentioning it to anyone confirmed my suspicion that I was, in fact, experiencing what it felt like to be in the closet. Every time it could possibly come up, I found myself making excuses not to out myself. It wasn’t the time; no one would care anyways; I’d do it later.

Once I realized I was doing it, it just got worse. I felt ashamed not because of my sexuality, but because of the way I was hiding it. It felt like I’d stuck it in a Ziploc bag with limited air, and it was slowly suffocating. (I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly afraid that, if I repressed it long enough, I’d become straight.)

I told Dad first, having decided, since I was going to be a coward about it, that I would take baby steps. One person at a time.

That had been easy. Dad was the last person in the world I was concerned about telling. All it took was a simple, “Daddy, you know I’m gay, right?”

“The Brandons are notoriously good with the ladies. I would have been disappointed if you _weren’t._ ”

And that was that, done. It lifted enough of the shame that I convinced myself that I didn’t really need to tell anyone else, anyways; what did it matter? I wasn’t going to be dating anyone while I was in hiding from a vampire.

I was off the hook. 

...for a grand total of six days.

It hadn’t occurred to me that school dances would be a big deal in Forks, but I guess it made sense. What else did they have to look forward to? I wasn’t at private school anymore, with all sorts of fundraisers and fairs. Dances were pretty much it here. 

In the week leading up to the first dance of the year, I think I gained the sort of intimate knowledge about every single person in the student body that would usually take years of deep friendship to acquire. Therefore, it did not surprise me that, at lunch period when our friends had gathered in the bathroom, Jessica was talking about Mike. 

“-and I heard he went with some of the guys to look at costumes, which means that he’s, like, honing in.” She paused, one hand still poised to fix her hair. “Wait. That sounded really fucking stupid. But you know what I mean.”

“You mean he’s thinking about the dance,” Angela said. “Which means he’ll be asking someone soon.”

“Yeah, that.” Jessica went back to fluffing her hair. “And, damn it, he had better ask me. He’s been flirting with me all week.”

“He’s been flirting with you for the past two years,” Angela complained. “It’s getting annoying. On, off, on, off... you’re like a couple of dysfunctional light switches. Or _not_ a couple, depending on the day.”

Jessica smacked her. “It’s not _my_ fault that he’s too scared to make it official.”

“Can’t _you_ make it official?” I asked. “I mean, a relationship takes two people.”

“Yeah, I _could,_ ” she said, “but I want _him_ to want it.”

“Sorry, I forgot we were in Victorian England. It would be awful if _you_ made the first move.”

She smacked me, too. “Well, Angela’s just waiting around for Ben, too. It’s not just me.”

Angela’s face lit up. “False.”

It looked like Jessica was going to faint. Her face went entirely white only to have a red flush spread moments later, and her eyes gained a slightly manic gleam. The door swung open and someone walked in, but Jessica didn’t turn to shoo whoever it was like she normally would have. I didn’t look away from Jessica for fear she would explode.

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“I asked him to go with me last night. Over Skype, but it was still something.”

“You bitch! Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I just did,” Angela said, rolling her eyes, but still smiling. “And don’t ask me for the mushy details, because there aren’t any. We both agreed that it was a long time coming and then we just kept talking like we always do, no theatrics involved.”

Jessica huffed. “Well, that’s no fun.”

She shifted her gaze to me. I didn’t need to be psychic to know what was coming.

“Well, if Angela’s going to be boring,” she started, “what about you? You’ve been so quiet — for you, anyways.” She leaned in as if we were all about to share some big secret. “ _So_. Alice.”

I fidgeted.

“You’ve been here a while.”

“I have.”

“Someone must have caught your eye.”

I suddenly became acutely aware that the other person in the bathroom was Rosalie Hale. 

Jessica took my silence as an invitation to keep going. “There are plenty of hot guys around here. Come on.”

There she was, fixing her hair like a normal teenage girl. What was that about? Like she didn’t know she looked perfect all the time.

“Oh my God, is it Mike? Because if it is, I totally don’t blame you,” Jessica went on. “This isn’t Mean Girls. May the best woman win.”

The crushing guilt was back.

“I don’t like Mike. Or any guy.”

That counted as being honest, right? 

Angela, my lovely, lovely, cousin, looked up sharply and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. 

Rosalie still hadn’t left. She was applying mascara now. _Why._

Jessica didn’t miss a beat. “Okay, no guys. Girls?”

I swear, the choking that followed that wasn’t my attempt to get out of answering the question. I think that, after having lived in a world of assumed straightness for so long, the question sounded so alien that my body decided it was existing in the wrong universe and tried to shut down.

Angela thumped me on the back while Jessica kept apologizing. “Sorry, sorry, _sorry,_ I am so fucking sorry _-_ that’s not even supposed to be an offensive question. Actually, it _isn’t_ an offensive question but if you’re offended I’m sorry even though you should really sort out your priorities but I’m _sorry_ so please don’t die _-_ ”

I held up a hand, which got her to slow down her apologies, but not stop.

When I finally rebooted my respiratory system, I managed an, “I’m not offended.”

She looked confused.

“I’m just surprised.” I coughed one last time. “No one’s ever asked.”

“Oh.” Jessica perked back up. “So, girls? Yes? No?”

I swallowed hard and stared at my shoes. “Yes, but no.”

Jessica squealed loudly enough to wake the next county and threw herself at me for a hug. “Aw, Alice! You budding baby lesbian!”

Even through Jessica’s tidal wave of excitement, I could hear the bathroom door swinging shut, preceded by a familiar disdainful snort.

I didn’t need to look up to know that Rosalie had left.

I didn’t go to my afternoon classes.

*

Why I couldn’t face Rosalie Hale when I knew that she knew I was gay, I didn’t know. Maybe it was because she was a vampire from who-knows what era, which meant there was an eighty-percent chance she was a raging homophobe. Maybe it was because I didn’t want her to have another thing to hold over my head. Maybe it was because I knew that I couldn’t get away with looking at her anymore. 

I decided late on Friday night that I wasn’t going to linger on it. 

It was still hard to go to first period on Monday. I could bounce back from anything, but I wasn’t always undamaged from the fall. 

She didn’t speak to me at all, not even to make a snide comment. I could usually count on getting at least one of those, but I might as well not have been sitting next to anyone for most of the morning. 

“What did you do to Rosalie?” Angela asked me as we milled through the lunch line. 

“What? Nothing,” I said. “Well, nothing more than whatever it is she usually thinks I’m doing to her.”

“You didn’t notice?” She didn’t look like she was buying it, whatever ‘it’ was. 

I shook my head. “No. Not at all.”

“She looked...” Angela glanced behind her and turned back. “I guess you can see for yourself. It’s like she turned into the Snow Queen overnight.”

“How is that different from normal?”

She jerked her head towards the Cullen table, mouthing ‘look’.

I twisted around and instantly regretted it. 

I would have been fine with whatever cold expression she had on, but there was something about talking about someone and turning around to find them glaring right at you, eye contact and everything, that made any situation one hundred times worse. Especially when you knew there was a very good chance they heard you.

I probably shouldn’t have stuck my tongue out at her, but there was something satisfying about acting as childish as she was. There was also something satisfying about the moment during which her icy mask wavered and Emmett’s hoots of laughter filled the cafeteria. 

_“Alice.”_

Angela gave my arm a sharp tug and we started moving towards the cash register again.

“What?”

“You know _what.”_

“She started it.”


	6. Chapter 6

_rosalie_

“It really wasn’t that funny.”

Emmett, who had wedged himself shotgun, mimed wiping a tear from his eye. “Oh, but it was _,_ Rose, it _was.”_

“It was childish.”

“And glaring at someone all day just because you’re in a foul mood _isn’t_ childish?” Edward asked from the backseat. “The poor girl hasn’t done anything to you.”

I wanted to know which of my siblings had launched this ‘support Alice Brandon’ campaign. That way, I’d know which of them I would have to be tracking for the next while. All it took was a little close attention to get revenge; if I could figure out what it was they treasured most at any given time, I would suddenly have a lot of leverage. 

“You’re not making a great case for yourself.” Edward again. 

I spun the wheel and screamed to a stop at the curb.

“Walk.”

“These are new shoes,” Edward whined. And _I_ was childish.

I popped the trunk. I wasn’t totally heartless; he could at least have his backpack as he walked the next five miles. 

“Aw, Rose, he’s just-”

“That included you, Emmett.”

He just stared at me, bug-eyed. I had never kicked him out of my car before. Edward, however, was a veteran, so I figured Emmett was in capable enough hands.

“You’re serious,” Emmett said.

I reached across the seat and opened his door for him. In the corner of my eye, I caught my reflection. My eyes had gone black. I had hunted last weekend, hadn’t I? Today had been worse than I thought.

I hardly waited for Emmett to be out of the car before I slammed his door shut. 

The back door still hadn’t closed. Edward wasn’t gone.

“You’re not staying with her,” he was saying, half of him still leaned into my car. 

Bella stayed where she was, arms crossed. 

“I’m not going to get soaked because you and Rose are having an argument,” she shot back. “I’m quite comfortable as I am.”

“But-”

“I’ll see you at home, Edward.” And she shut the door.

I shot off before either of the boys could think to grab the car or to do some other clever thing.

It wasn’t often that Bella and I found ourselves alone together. Neither of us ever had anything to say to the other. I put forth no effort to make it otherwise.

“You don’t look so great,” Bella said as we pulled into our lane. “Your eyes have gone-”

“Yes. I know. Immaturity has that effect on me.”

We didn’t talk after that.

*

I passed the evening as I had many times before: locked in the attic, my only companions a candle and a book. 

The book did nothing for me. It might have decades ago, before my mind became so full of useless, inescapable thoughts. Why give someone immortality and refuse to let them forget? We could never really leave anything behind, and it was that, not our bodies, that kept us frozen. There was no thought a book could block. I missed the safe haven fictional worlds had provided me years ago as I came to terms with the fact I would be trapped in this real one forever. 

I closed the book and rested my head against the wall, breathing in the musty air. The attic was the only place in the house — in any house we ever inhabited — to have no sign of the others. It was just me, the dust, keepsakes, and, more often than not, spiders. They were horrible creatures, really, but I supposed we had that in common. I’d grown to tolerate their company. At least they didn’t talk. I had asked Esme if I could get a tarantula once, but ‘it just wouldn’t work’ and I should know that ‘we don’t keep pets’. I had found Edward cornered by a spider on the shower ledge only days later, an event completely unrelated to my ongoing lack of a pet tarantula, I’m sure.

Through the floorboards, what had been faint piano music swelled to an unnecessary _fortissimo._

It said something about my self-control that I didn’t even scoff at the hypocritically childish behaviour. But, no, Edward couldn’t possibly be acting childish. It was always _Rosalie_ who was being childish. _Rosalie_ was always being petty. _Rosalie_ was being unfair and unreasonable. Edward could throw as many temper tantrums as he wanted and still be labeled as _artistic_ and _brooding_. 

Sometimes I thought I was due for another year away, but, every time I considered it, an unpleasant, unwarranted feeling of shame crept up my spine and spread through my body, and I knew that I couldn’t let myself give in again. Rosalie Hale didn’t _give in._ If I did, what would that tell Emmett? That I had left him just to wander the world, ready to fall into anyone’s arms, as long as they were- 

I wouldn’t let myself give in.

Not that I was doing a spectacular job of it.

It was under control — or it had been. But Emmett wouldn’t let it go.

He knew he was right. I hated that he knew and that he was watching every day, so every day I tried harder, and every day it _worked_ but didn’t work at all and he knew. There was no way he couldn’t, not with the way he grinned at me at the exact wrong moments, not with the way he vouched for her day after day, not with way he took genuine interest in her, _just in case._

If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought it was Emmett who-

It had been under control. I hadn’t even given it a serious thought. And then she ruined it like the idiotic, unaware creature she was. It was like she’d stuck herself on a hook and dangled herself in front of me without having a clue she was doing it. Suddenly, I had been faced with the very real possibility that she could — _and would, certainly would_ — get a girlfriend. And the thought had burned.

That, I assume, was the moment I lost control. I wasn’t sure. I was still half-convinced that it _was_ under control, at least to some extent.

And, until she was out of my life, I would fight to keep it that way.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Non-consensual kiss towards the end of the chapter. (Don't worry, he gets his ass handed to him for it.)

_alice_

If I’d had any doubt about whether Rosalie simply disliked me or actually hated me, I certainly didn’t in the days that followed what I shall refer to as the Tongue Incident. (Not to be confused with the Pen Incident or the Phone Incident or the Tyler Incident or the Christmas Incident or the Tanya Incident, of course.)

I started to wonder in the following week if I had done something horrible to her or one of her family members and just had no memory of it. I knew I was more than capable of doing a great deal of damage and recalling none of it afterwards. The wrap I kept around my right arm never let me forget that. But it seemed unlikely; Dad would have told me if I’d had an episode.

Which left me to draw the conclusion that I had done nothing other than be myself. I told myself that it had nothing to do with the conversation Rosalie had overheard last week, but a little part of me clung to the notion that that had been the catalyst for the ice storm I had to face in every class we shared.

At least she wasn’t being overtly mean. She might as well have been with the looks she gave me — which were actually frightening — but I could at least ignore those.

Or try. It was very hard juggling my attraction to her along with my attempts at indifference towards her.

_“Alice.”_

I nearly fell out of my chair at the sudden proximity of Jessica’s waving hand to my face. So much for psychic perks.

“Sorry, what?” I asked, blinking in the sudden light of reality. 

“You were staring at the Cullens,” she said. “Are you sure this Rosalie thing isn’t bothering you? You wouldn’t be the first person she’s driven to insanity.”

I looked away from the vampires and at Jessica. “I’m sure. I was just having a staring contest with Edward’s hair. It looks like it has a face.”

Jessica turned around. “Oh my god. It _does._ Do you think he styles it that way on purpose?”

“Who would style a face into their hair on purpose?”

Mike, grinning around a mouthful of apple, raised his hand. 

At this, Edward reached a hand up to his hand and smoothed it down in what I figured was supposed to be a casual manner. I giggled into my milk at the exact same moment Rosalie started laughing. My laughter died and I started fiddling with my food to hide the abruptness of it.

Maybe the Rosalie thing did bother me. But only a little bit.

“Speaking of the Cullens,” Mike said, “has anyone invited them to Tyler’s Halloween party tonight?”

“They never come,” Jessica grumbled, as if this were a personal offense. “Why bother?”

“It’s called being nice, Jess,” he said. “Besides, it’s right after the dance. We’d look like huge douches if we all started heading over there and they weren’t even invited.”

“Like they’re going to that, either.”

“Bella said they were going the other day,” I put in.

They all went quiet for a moment.

“Wait,” Ben, who had been otherwise absorbed in some game on his 3DS, said, “are you telling us that she actually spoke to you?”

“Yes?” I shifted, uncomfortably aware that, should they choose, the Cullens could easily be listening to the entire conversation. At least Mike was being nice. “I sit next to her in Algebra.”

Ben let out a low whistle. “How’d you manage that? They never speak to anyone.”

“Unless it’s to insult them,” Jessica said, tossing a glare in the general direction of Rosalie. 

I decided then was a good time to excuse myself. I didn’t need to dig my vampire-related hole any deeper.

“Well,” I said, pushing back my chair, “good luck with your invitation. I have to, um, finish some homework. See you later!”

I made it out of the cafeteria in record time. I didn’t even smash into anyone on the way out.

By some freaky vampire magic, Edward was leaned up against my locker when I rounded the corner. I made a ‘shoo’ motion, and he backed up slightly, but stayed close enough that I couldn’t ignore him without being rude.

“Sorry about the hair comment,” I eventually said from inside my locker. “It didn’t look that much like a face.”

He laughed lightly. “I have had worse things said at my expense.”

“I can’t imagine by whom.”

Edward didn’t say anything to this for a long enough time that I wondered if he’d left. But, no, when I came up from my locker, he was still standing there with a pained expression on his face.

“My sister can be... difficult.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Rosalie is not, however, why I would like to talk to you,” he continued. “I have been in contact with Jasper recently.”

“At least someone has,” I muttered.

He carried on as if he hadn’t heard me.

“He says the tracker is getting closer to this area, and he would prefer that we kept a closer eye on you, just to be sure that nothing, ah, undesirable sneaks up on you.”

“What?”

“These situations can get very tricky very quickly, ” Edward explained. “We’re a very fast-moving-”

“No, no, I know all of that. I’m just curious as to why Jasper couldn’t tell me any of this himself. Or ask my permission.” Edward opened his mouth to explain again, but I kept going, quietly enough that if anyone were to walk by, they wouldn’t be able to hear. “It’s _my_ life on the line here, and he couldn’t even bother to tell me that he was sending me across the country not to get me away from the problem, but to be conveniently close to his super-secret ex-coven? Where’s my say in that? Do I look like I want to be surrounded by vampires?”

“I believe he-”

“And I don’t suppose he told you to _tell_ me that he suddenly wants you not just to be a safety measure, but also to be _watching_ me. He was just going to send you over to take away my privacy without my consent.” I took a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate him. It’s not that I don’t love him to pieces, because I do. He’s the best thing that could have happened to me while I was in the hospital. But he thinks I’m some sort of helpless damsel in distress, and I’m not. I’ll know if I’m in danger, probably before you will.” 

“Of course,” Edward said. He had an odd look about him, like he’d received a similar talking to before.

“I’m going to make one request — no, I’m going to make one demand.”

He waited.

“You are _always_ to speak to me before you exercise your power over my life, whether Jasper asks you to or not. You are not going to _tell_ me that you’re doing something. You are going to _ask._ Just because I listened to Jasper and came to Forks doesn’t mean he’s in control of what happens to me while I’m here. Even though I’m not like you, I am your equal.” I glared up at him. “Got it?”

Judging by the look on his face, he got it.

*

Because apparently Jasper’s ordinance required near-constant supervision, Jessica informed me that Emmett Cullen had happily accepted Tyler’s party invitation. I guessed this was a first, because it was all anyone would talk about when school let out, to the point I pretended to get an urgent text just so I could leave.

When I went home that evening, I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that I was being watched, which had me sending Jasper a short series of texts.

_I need to talk to you._

_constant babysitting is overkill. :\_

_it’s also creepy._

_remember: I’ll know if you see these and don’t call me._

With that done, I marched up to my room, locked my windows, and drew my curtains shut, tight. After a moment of deliberation, I hunted down a few safety pins and pinned the curtains shut, too, just in case. It still didn’t feel like enough, because I knew from months of being under Jasper’s care that they would be able to hear anything happening inside the house from at least a mile away. So long, personal time.

On that happy note, I dove into my closet — which, ironically, I was considering turning into a temporary home — and hunted down the Halloween costume I had haphazardly put together last weekend. I supposed haphazardly wasn’t the right word; it wasn’t my best work, but, for being the first thing I’d sewn without a pattern in four years, it was pretty okay. The stuff I’d put together for Angela and Jessica were of the same quality, but neither of them had even seemed to notice the uneven stitching, so I was off the hook.

There had been an hour in which we had all seriously debated going as a Mean Girls reference — the mouse, the bunny, and the ‘ex-wife‘ — but that had fallen through when no one had wanted to be the one wearing fake teeth all night. So, we’d gone with an Alice in Wonderland theme (not at my suggestion, although I had no objection). Angela went for the Queen of Hearts; Jessica, the Cheshire Cat; and myself, the Mad Hatter. 

Throwing that ensemble together had been a nice return to what life had been like before my hospitalization. I had used to love making costumes for Cynthia and I. I kept the picture of us as Mickey and Minnie Mouse on my bedside table. I made a note to Skype her; if there was anyone who would sympathize with my struggles, it was my sister.

Angela, Ben, Jessica, and Mike arrived shortly after I pinned my hat in place. As I was the only one without a date, they had agreed it was only fair that we become a fivesome, at least until we hit the dance floor. 

I, personally, had been fighting to go hen.

“What is _hen?”_ Angela had demanded in Chemistry. 

“It’s the female version of ‘stag’,” I had said matter-of-factly. “You know, like when a guy goes to a dance alone? ‘Cause guys have stag parties before weddings, and girls have hen parties, so if we’re going for the female version of ‘stag’...”

Angela had just stared at me much in the way she had the first time I had said ‘webber’ instead of ‘whatever’. 

“It’s a thing.”

Apparently, it was not enough of a thing for my friends to ‘allow’ me to show up in Dad’s cruiser. I _liked_ the cruiser.

“Damn,” Jessica said when I opened my front door, her face split wide in an appreciative grin. “Alice has legs under there. Are we trying to pick up some ladies tonight?”

“Sounds like she’s already picked you up,” Angela deadpanned. “Do you want to be left alone?”

I rolled my eyes and stepped outside, calling a quick ‘bye!’ to my dad, who was trying to glue a bolt to the side of his neck. He’d been Frankenstein’s monster every year since I could remember.

We all crammed into Jessica’s little Toyota and chugged along to school. They’d set it up to be scary in that ‘totally not scary’ Halloween-y way, although, on the way into the gym, iconic scenes from actual horror movies were projected onto the wall, which was a nice touch. Angela, Ben, and I stopped at every projection to watch the whole thing, much the the irritation of Mike and Jessica. 

We did, eventually, make it into the gym, which had also been decorated in cobwebs, skeletons, and the like. Cute-scary. Not scary-scary.

Not until the Cullens showed up, anyways.

I was the only one who knew why, but the moment they stepped into the gym, the atmosphere changed. I could almost feel everyone tense ever-so-slightly; even if they didn’t realize it, they were humans in a dark room where the vampires would have the advantage.

The dance was, as expected, a little lackluster compared to what I was used to, but the show of people casting worried looks behind them, catching themselves, and then looking confused because they didn’t know why they suddenly had goosebumps made it worth my time. 

Also, I would be lying if I said I didn’t find it more than a little funny watching Rosalie, who was sitting at a table at the back, reject partner after partner with increasing ire and watching Emmett do the exact opposite. It was a comfort to see that at least one of them was here for the fun of it, although I supposed Edward and Bella could be said to be having fun as they whirled around — even if Edward did look a little pained. 

I busied myself doing something I’d dearly missed, and that was dancing. Fast, slow, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Making up for years lost, I guess. Hospitals weren’t really known for their raves. Jasper, once in a while, had been convinced to twirl me around the room — moreso when I had been younger — but that had been the extent of it for the last four years. 

We Monster Mashed and Cha Cha Slid our way to ten, when everyone was herded out of the gym by, of all people, our ancient English teacher, still holding that copy of _Pride and Prejudice._ I squished myself back into the Toyota, which now smelt of cologne and sweat, and we sped off to Tyler Crowley’s.

It was there that things changed.

*

For all the things I’d seen, both in the physical world and out, I had never seen an authentic, teenage-run party. 

It was exactly what I expected. Raucous laughter; the sour perfume of beer; lights dim enough that darkness consumed inhibition; music that drummed so loudly it became your heartbeat.

Even though my head pounded with every beat, I couldn’t help smiling. 

“Oh yeah,” Angela called to me over the music. “I forgot that you’ve never been to a party. Time for your first red solo cup.”

She grabbed my arm and we wove through the crowd of teenagers, mostly upperclassmen, to the kitchen. If there was a counter underneath the various bottles and beer cans, I couldn’t see it. 

Angela handed me a cup. “Drink. Or don’t. I’m just doing what Jessica did to me.”

With a shrug, I tipped the cup back. The alcohol didn’t taste like much at first, but, after a second or two, the burning started.

I sneezed a little sneeze, which, as it had since we were young, set Angela off.

“I’ve never seen anyone _sneeze,_ ” she said between giggles. “You’re supposed to gag or cough or something.”

I glared at her as I downed the rest, holding back the sneeze and shuddering instead.

“Yum?”

“I wouldn’t drink much if I were you,” Angela advised. “You’re tiny and I am not taking the blame if you die of alcohol poisoning or something. Here.” She poured me a half cup of something. “If you decide you don’t want to drink, carry this cup around. No one will offer you anything if you look like you’re already drinking. Oh, and-”

“-don’t put the cup down. I know.”

After that little ‘big cousin to little cousin’ talk, Angela disappeared somewhere with Ben, presumably outside. I didn’t spend long by myself before the host swooped into the kitchen and swooped back out with me, apparently determined to ‘make my first party my best’. 

Somewhere in the first hour, the Cullens — or only Emmett and Rosalie, from what I saw — showed up, and, again, that layer of unsettledness came over the place. However, as if completely unaware of this, Emmett dove right into the fray. For a vampire, he was pretty sociable. I watched him strike up a conversation with Eric Yorkie and immediately put the kid at ease. Rosalie, meanwhile, stuck herself to a wall and glared at anyone who dared come within a five foot radius.

Given the proper light, it was harder now to look away from her. She’d gone the ‘put cat ears and a tail on and claim it’s a costume’ route, which meant putting on tight-fitting black clothes and making yourself look as attractive as you could without crossing the line of social acceptability. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. It was all in how you wore it.

Rosalie — well, did it need saying? She could have given a paper bag sex appeal, so the corset and the little black skirt were really just sort of _there_.

I had called her beautiful from day one, but never sexy. I hadn’t _ever_ called anyone sexy. It had always sounded silly.

I decided I’d changed my mind.

It wasn’t how much of her the clothes revealed. If I had wanted to objectify Rosalie, I would have done it on day one. It was how she took ownership of it, because she had to know that people would be looking at her, reducing her to nothing more than her body. She wasted no time in freezing every single one of those thoughts before they even had time to form. 

So, for once, that meant she wasn’t glaring at me. That was a bonus. It was much easier to admire her when she didn’t look like she wanted me dead. 

Jessica’s squealing brought me back to reality then, and I found myself back in the realm of the teenagers. 

The night wore on, and, as the drinking games did their job, people started drifting off in small groups around the house, slurring their words and tripping over their own feet and laughing.

I was left sitting with a sophomore named Whitney, an easygoing Quileute kid who’d introduced himself as Jacob, and Tyler, who hadn’t really left after he’d found me in the kitchen. He had an arm sort of slung around the back of the couch, which also happened to be very close behind me. I wriggled a little bit forwards, away, but he didn’t seem to notice. 

“You look great, by the way,” he said with a nod. “Where’d you find your costume?”

“I made it,” I said, smoothing the skirt. “Angela and Jessica wanted a theme, so this is what we wound up with.”

“You made theirs, too?” 

I bobbed my head. His arm slipped off the back of the couch and now rested behind me.

“That’s talent,” he said with a whistle that didn’t come out quite right. He must have been drunker than his speech let on. He stooped a little to look at my face as opposed to the top of my head. “You going to college for fashion or whatever? You’d be good at it.”

I smiled in way of thanks, though I moved just a little closer to the edge of my seat. While I was at it, I did another cast around the room for Angela, who I’d only seen once since her initial departure. Her mother had sent me at least five texts asking me to ask her about their printer. What Aunt Kathy was doing printing something at one in the morning, I didn’t know, but the buzzing was getting on my nerves.

“You wanna get something to drink?” Tyler asked when I didn’t say anything.

_Not particularly._ But the couch was starting to feel too confining, so I agreed and stood up anyways. My legs protested, but I shook them and followed Tyler to the kitchen. Our feet slapped against the linoleum floors and echoed off the walls, clashing with the thudding bass. 

“Ladies first,” Tyler said with an exaggerated bow. 

I had to squeeze past him to get to the cups, and, halfway there, my stomach clenched. The feeling was familiar, but I played it off as a late reaction to the alcohol. 

There was only a little bit left per container, so I grabbed whatever I could find and just sort of dumped it into a cup. It all tasted the same anyways. 

When I turned around to hand the drink to him, he was still unnervingly close. He took it from me and immediately put it down on the counter beside him, leaving his hand there so that I was more or less caged in. 

He leaned in a little, enough that I could smell the staleness of beer on his breath.

“You really do look great.” 

And then he was kissing me.

_Shoot._

_No._

_GetitoffNO._

My hands scrabbled up from behind me and found his chest. He kept going, his tongue working to part my lips. 

The sirens going off in my mind finally quieted down and I came to my senses enough to turn my head away. “Stop it.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked, still too close, too close, _too close_ , his hands tracing along my waist.

I tried to push him back, but he was rooted.

_Tell him you’re gay._

“I’m not- I don’t-” 

His lips silenced me.

And again, I tried pointlessly to shove him away. He caught my wrists and and pressed them back again the counter, moving in so that his body was pressed up against mine.

“It’s okay,” he soothed. He was so much _taller_ than me. “I’m a nice guy. I’ll be gent-”

_CRACK._

And Tyler was gone. 

It took me much longer than it should have to register that it had been his back hitting the granite of the counter that had made the cracking noise. It took me even longer to realize that it was Rosalie who was holding him there, her forearm pressed across his collar.

Tyler came around about the same time I did. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Rosalie, for the first time since I’d met her, actually looked like a vampire. Her eyes had gone completely black, and the glint in them was nothing short of animalistic. Against her lower lip, I could make out the sharp tips of her fangs. I knew vampires had them, but I had never seen them out. I pressed myself as far back as I could go, but I didn’t think I was the one in danger.

“Would you like me to stop?” 

Her words hissed like steam, scalding the room.

Tyler’s nods were feverish. 

“Ask me nicely.”

“Please stop.”

He tried to shift away. She pushed him back harder.

“What’s the matter?”

_“Stop.”_ His words were a shrill whine. “That fucking _hurts_.”

“That was the idea,” she purred. “Does it not feel nice to have someone touch you without your permission?”

_“No,”_ he said, and tried again to escape. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

And again, she kept him still. “Do you think she liked when you kissed her just now?”

He took a while to answer. She pressed harder. Tyler was going to bruise.

“No, _no!”_

“And why is that?”

“Because she said to stop.”

“And did you?”

“No-”

“Then why should I?”

“Stop.” The sound of my own voice surprised me. She stilled, but didn’t let go. I stepped towards her and tugged on the arm she had across him. “Rosalie, _stop._ ”

For a few seconds, she didn’t move at all. Then, as abruptly as she had grabbed Tyler, she released him and left him slumped against the counter. 

“Touch her- touch _anyone_ like that again,” Rosalie said, her voice sweet, threatening, “and see if I stop.”


	8. Chapter 8

_rosalie_

We didn’t go home that night. Emmett thought it would be best, and, for once, I agreed with him. The thought of facing Edward was unbearable. 

For the first hour after I left that godawful place, I circled the forest by the clearing we used for baseball. Emmett found me there, and, careful not to touch me, he guided me to a log, where we sat in silence for another half hour.

“I would do it again.” 

He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was listening. 

“I could kill him and feel nothing.” My lip curled back over my teeth. “But even then, I wouldn’t be the monster.” 

“I know.”

*

I remembered last time.

That had been decades ago. Two complete strangers in a public washroom.

No one had been there to stop me.

*

She was so small. So stupidly trusting. 

It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know he wouldn’t have stopped, no matter how hard she’d begged. 

But I did.

*

“It had to be her.”

My nails dug into my legs.

“I wish it had been someone else.”

They were starting to make marks.

“How horrible is that?”

Emmett’s hands found mine and he worked to unclench them. 

“It _had_ to be her.”

When my fingers were straight, he drew back.

“I hate her. I _hate_ her.”

And I did. 

I hated her because she wouldn’t back down. 

I hated her because I had wanted it to be anyone but her.

I hated her because I couldn’t hate her enough.

“Maybe you should try not hating her for a little while. Just to see.”

“I can’t just-”

“Try. Just for a little while.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

_alice_

I didn’t get much sleep that weekend.

I stayed up, worrying that Tyler would be upset with me.

Worrying that the story would get twisted.

Worrying about Monday.

Worrying about Rosalie. About whatever it was that had happened to her. 

She’d done nothing to deserve my concern, but I knew what it was like to have triggers. What it was like to blink and find yourself back _then_ and _there_ and to drown in it all. 

No one deserved to live with that. 

But I managed to shove all that down with everything else, down under the curtain I had tossed over everything that wasn’t in my control. It was a technique I had been forced to learn very young when I realized that no matter how hard I cried, the bad things I saw in my dreams would still happen. I couldn’t change everything. I just had to make do.

It took me until five in the morning on Sunday to get it under control, and by then I was so exhausted I practically fainted. Dad didn’t wake me up until four. Which meant I stayed up until three the next night. 

So, by Monday, I was operating on very little sleep. I wasn’t sure how I had done it before, back when my visions had been so vivid I hadn’t been able to sleep once I woke up from one. It felt like someone was constantly squeezing my temples, and I couldn’t quite bring the world into focus. 

This is why I wasn’t entirely sure I was awake when I arrived to first period. 

I was used to my routine. 

Walk in.

Sit down.

Greet Rosalie, no matter how bad our last interaction had been. 

Get one of three responses: a snide comment, a glare, or absolutely nothing.

So I walked in and I sat down.

“Good morning. How are you?”

“Well enough. And yourself?”

I had already bent over to grab my books from my bag, having not expected much of a response. Once it registered that she had replied, and without sarcasm, I shot back up. 

“I’m fine. Or I _was_. Now I’m confused.” 

She raised an eyebrow, actually looking amused. “And why is that?”

“You never respond when I ask how you are,” I said, “let alone ask _me_.”

“Take it as an apology.”

“For what?” 

Rosalie tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and leaned slightly towards me. “I believe I may have frightened you over the weekend. I apologize.”

I thought of several things to say, but no words came from my mouth. I just stared at her.

“What?” She looked affronted. 

“I’m waiting for the punchline. I can’t believe that you’re genuinely apologizing to me.”

“Well, you should, because I am,” she practically snapped, sitting back. That was more familiar, so I relaxed a little. “If you’re not going to-”

“Apology accepted.”

“Thank you.”

“Actually, I should be thanking you,” I said, more to the top of her head than to her. “I appreciate that you... well, I didn’t go to that party to kiss boys.”

“I know,” she said a little too quickly, a little too intensely. “He had no right to touch you.”

We didn’t talk after that, so I knew that things hadn’t really changed.

Or maybe they had. She didn’t glare at me once for the rest of the day.

*

I don’t know where Jasper found the time to call me and talk like a regular teenager, but my phone rang on the hour at noon that Thursday, and there he was.

“So, is this Jasper Hale or his automated voice system?” I asked as I fought my way out of the hallways and into the sprinkling rain.

“Hello to you, too, Alice.”

“You’re okay?” 

“I’m fine,” his static-filled voice assured me. “We’re a couple of states over, but he hasn’t gotten too close yet. It’s mighty difficult to track a person across the country, but he seems determined.”

“You’ll get ahold of me if you’re in trouble, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I smiled at the formality, but my whole body ached with how much I missed him. He’d been a constant part of my life for years, first as a caretaker and then, as I got older, a friend, and it felt strange not to have him close by. Even in the months I had been out of the hospital for the last two years, he’d found time to come visit me.

But, no matter how much I missed him, he was still in trouble.

I planted myself on the hood of Angela’s old truck.

“I sense I’m about to be given context for your text message,” Jasper said. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry and I didn’t mean it.”

I was in the middle of rolling my eyes before I realized he couldn’t see me. “It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry and you didn’t mean it. You still did something that was one-hundred percent not okay.”

He waited for me to continue without protest.

“Answer me honestly: were you going to tell me that you were having me watched?”

“I- no. I didn’t want you to have another thing to worry about.”

“Jasper, I would have noticed almost immediately,” I said. “You keep forgetting that vampires aren’t the only things with weird abilities. And, speaking of vampires, don’t you think you should have mentioned there was a whole coven of them living here?”

“I have a good reason for that,” Jasper said. His voice strained with earnestness. “I haven’t had any idea where they’ve lived for over a decade. That was pure coincidence, honest, Alice.”

I frowned. “So you spoke to Edward about what was going on _how_ , then?”

“I came across his name in the student directory. I told you I’d be doing a scan of the school to make sure there weren’t going to be any... issues.” I could imagine his lip curling back over his teeth. “It’s not uncommon for nomads to help each other, and it’s an awful small world we’ve got. Forks is notorious for attracting my kind, anyways, and I wasn’t going to let you take that risk. But that’s how. There aren’t too many Edward Cullens out there.”

“You understand why that bothered me, though, right?”

“Of course. I should have told you as soon as I knew.” He paused and blew out a sigh that made his end of the line crackle. “I’ve been inconsiderate and controlling. I promise, Alice, I’ll ask you before I decide anything else. Can you forgive me?”

“I’m not happy with you,” I said, “but I’m not too far gone. As long as you never make changes to my life without telling me again.”

“Never ever. Soldier’s honour.”

“Then I forgive you.” I leaned back to let the rain hit my face and said, “I’ve been doing that a lot lately. You’re the second vampire to apologize to me this week.”

“How did you manage that?”

“No idea. Rosalie doesn’t really strike me as the ‘apologizing’ type.”

There was a string of silence.

“I’m sorry, are you saying that _Rosalie_ apologized to you?”

“Yup.”

“Blonde-haired, golden-eyed Rosalie?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Rosalie Lillian Hale Rosalie?”

“Is that her middle name? It’s so _pretty_ \- but, um, yes. That Rosalie.”

Jasper whistled on the other end, but most of it turned into static. “It took me years to wring one of those out of her. You’re an impressive little lady.”

Before I could respond, my eyes slid out of focus. When my sight returned, I was looking at a different scene. 

_Rosalie._

_Forks High._

_A picnic bench._

_Heavy rain._

My head spun and my thoughts scrambled, but I was conscious enough to recognize a vision.

_A ringing sound._

_Rosalie on the phone, a genuine smile lighting her expression_.

“You should call her,” I was saying as I shivered back into reality.

“Rose?” He didn’t sound worried, just confused, so I figured I hadn’t been out for more than a few seconds. 

“Yes. Rosalie.” I sighed. For someone who had been around for almost two-hundred years, Jasper could be daft. “Blonde-haired, golden-eyed Rosalie Lillian Hale. She really misses you.”

“What makes you think that?” 

Was I imagining the little guilty lilt to his voice?

“When I got your first text last month, Rosalie figured out that I knew and was in contact with you. She looked really upset, and not in the angry way.” I paused, and a thought came to me.

_“Ask your brother. I’m sure, if you ask nicely, he’ll explain it to you.”_

_“How am I supposed to ask my brother if I have no idea where- oh. You were referring to Edward.”_

“You’re the first person she thinks of when someone talks about her brothers.”

A long minute of silence passed. The rain got heavier.

“She’s on lunch,” I said.

“You want me to call her right now?”

“What’s wrong with right now?”

“Nothing, I guess.”

My hair was starting to stick to my face. That would be fun to work with later.

“I have to go anyways.”

“But-”

“Call your sister, Jasper.” I wiped my hair off my forehead. “Send me a text when you can.”

“I will,” Jasper said, sounding a little dejected.

“You know I’m not trying to get rid of you,” I said. “I miss you every second.”

“Stay safe, Alice.”

Despite the rain, I stayed sitting on Angela’s truck long enough to watch Rosalie emerge from the school, one hand plugging one ear and one hand holding her phone to the other. From here, I couldn’t tell if she looked angry or relieved, but I had known her long enough to assume that it was probably a mix of the two. 

By the time I slid off the hood and had to pass her to get back inside, I was sure that relief and maybe even happiness were winning out. She wasn’t in class for the rest of the day, but I decided to take that as a good thing. And I found that nothing could have made me happier on that day.


	10. Chapter 10

_rosalie_

My phone rang for about fifteen seconds before it registered in my mind that it was, in fact, _my_ phone ringing. The last time someone had actually called me had been at least a year ago. All calls went to Esme, Carlisle, Bella, or Edward. Neither Emmett nor I had developed the habit of checking our phones regularly. The vampire world didn’t exactly have much of a social network.

I answered it without bothering to check the caller ID, knowing that if I did, I’d probably wind up missing the call. I didn’t need to get another lecture on ‘ignoring family emergencies’. It would be just like Bella to catch fire or something similarly stupid the moment we all left the cafeteria and went our own ways.

“Yes?”

For a moment, all I got was silence. And then, “Hello, Rosalie.”

I actually drew the phone away from my head and ran my index finger around my ear to make sure I was hearing properly. 

“Rose?”

No, that Southern accent definitely belonged to whom I thought it belonged.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m not really known for my sense of humour.”

“Jasper, it has been over a _decade_ since we’ve spoken. What makes you think I want anything to do with-”

“I’m sorry, Rose. I really am. I’ve made so many mistakes in the last ten years, and just cutting myself off from all of you — especially you — is in my top three.”

I didn’t respond to that, just shouldered my way out the front door of the school. The rain was just beginning to pick up, but I hardly noticed it.

”You know decision making isn’t my strong suit.”

“Anyone who has ever spoken to you for more than two minutes knows that.”

“I’m not going to ask you to forgive me,” Jasper said. “That would be arrogant. But can I ask you to try to understand?”

“Understand what? Why you couldn't spare a second to so much as say hello to me when you were chatting Edward up so that he’d protect your key to salvation?” I snapped. “And don’t feed me some line about you ‘not having the time’. If you have time to be _texting_ , you have time to acknowledge that I exist.”

“That was inconsiderate of me, I’ll admit,” he said. “I was just so fixated on making a safe place as quickly as possible that I didn’t really think about anything else. I’ve already had a strip torn off me for that, so can we skip that part?”

My anger momentarily went from boil to simmer. “Who dares tear a strip off of Major Whitlock?”

He made a displeased sound in his throat at the use of his former name. “The same person who manages to extract an apology from Rosalie Hale without knowing her for more than a year.”

“And there she is.”

I took his silence as a question.

“I can’t go more than twenty minutes without someone bringing Alice Brandon up. It’s tiring, much like her.”

“You wouldn’t like her, of course,” Jasper said. I could almost hear his eyes rolling. “Do you like any humans?”

For a very, very brief moment, I considered correcting him — or maybe just clarifying — but I shut down the idea. I didn’t have the time to get into that mess with him. He knew my history with Emmett, with my year of travelling, with _that._ I really did prefer to keep it as history, and history alone. 

“I tolerate a fair few,” I said. “She’s just a special case.”

_A very special case._

“Well,” he said, “just do me a favour and don’t make her wither or anything. She really is a nice girl.”

_As if I haven’t noticed that, you dolt._

“Whatever you say.”

“She really pushed for me to call you.”

“You wouldn’t have done it of your own accord, naturally.”

“Poor decision making, remember?”

“Are you going to elaborate, or just make vague comments? Because if so, I have better things to do.”

Jasper sighed, and my end of the line exploded in static. Wherever he was, it had _terrible_ reception. “I called her a few minutes ago,” he explained, “which I wouldn’t have done either, but I haven’t been able to respond to her texts at all and I foresaw the conversation we needed to have as being one better had over the phone. Anyways, she more or less hung up on me after insisting that I should call you.”

“And why is that?”

“She’s observant.” He paused. “So here I am. Phoning you. And I agree with her; it was probably a good idea. You won’t believe me, but I’ve missed you, honest to God. You were the only thing that made living with the rest of them tolerable.”

I didn’t want to smile, but I did regardless. I couldn’t count how many times he had thrown himself down on my bed and groaned, _“What is_ wrong _with these people?”_

“You were right in assuming I won’t forgive you,” I said, “but you’re still my brother. Which means you are bound by family duty to explain to me what the _hell_ you’ve been doing to get yourself into this mess.”

“That’s a long story.”

Through the rain, I caught the scent of vanilla. This on its own would have meant nothing to me, but the mix of that with butterscotch — a unique scent I had long since memorized — alerted me to Alice’s presence. I didn’t need to look up to know that she was just passing. It was already programmed into my system to ignore her, but I found that I did look up as she went by. The ever-present spring to her step was more pronounced and she was grinning to herself. 

I realized I was still smiling, and so, for a moment, she beamed at me and I couldn’t find it in me to scowl back.

_Thanks._

“No one is making me go back to class.”

So he talked. It wasn’t like Jasper to tell long stories, but that’s just what he did. I was grateful not just because I wanted answers, but because I had missed him. I had never quite seen eye-to-eye with Bella or Edward, and I couldn’t even begin to explain the relationship I had developed with Emmett. But Jasper, he had been a good brother. He had never been one to patronize me, maybe because he could feel what I felt, or maybe because he just understood. If I had been seen as the weakest of spirit, he had certainly been seen as the weakest of mind. We both had shortcomings, and, with him, it never felt like I was being judged. 

When I had come back from my year away, he hadn’t said anything. But, that weekend, he’d driven us out to a car show. A gesture of normalcy. I had never appreciated anything more. Life without him had been… difficult in the last decade.

His life didn’t sound like it had been a cakewalk, either. As he talked, I learned how he had given up the vegetarian diet almost immediately, how he had almost returned to the state of despair in which Edward had found him. How he eventually learned to balance hunting humans and hunting animals to keep the depression at bay. 

He told me how he had, in just six years, taught himself the resistance we never could, enough to work around inpatients at a mental hospital. He told me about the thirteen-year-old girl who had been put under his care during his first year. He told me about how on some days it seemed like _she_ was helping _him,_ not the other way around. He told me about how she had started to get better.

And he told me about how she had almost lost her life. 

About the tracker. His cunning. His skill. 

“Normally, I would have let him have her — the circle of life and all that. But it seemed like a poor way to repay her, and after almost four years of watching her improve, I didn’t have it in me. I fought him, and that made the game more exciting, I guess.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I can’t say that I do,” Jasper said. “It got her out of that hospital, and she’s back in school now. Doing fine, too, from the sounds of it. It looks something like a normal life if you ignore the vampire tracking her. She deserves that much after fighting so hard.”

“You’re not a superhero, Jasper,” I said. “You’re not meant to save people.”

“I’ve never met anyone quite like her,” he insisted. “It just seemed wrong to let someone snuff her out.”

_I wish you had._

_I’m grateful you didn’t._

“Well, we’re all dutifully keeping an eye on her over here.” I brushed a strand of soaked hair out of my face. “Nothing is more captivating than listening to a human sleep.”

He laughed. “It won’t be for much longer. I’m leading him north. Speaking of which…”

I sighed. “Alright. Get back to it.”

“I’ll try to get ahold of you at the same time I do with Alice from now on, okay?”

“At the risk of sounding desperate — okay.”

“I’ll talk to you later. Promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”


End file.
